Production of negative hydrogen and deuterium ions in microwave-driven ion sources.

The authors report progress they have made in the production of negative hydrogen and deuterium atomic ions in magnetically-confined microwave-driven (2.45 GHz) ion sources. The influence of source surface material, microwave power, source gas pressure and magnetic field configuration on the resulting ion current is discussed. Results strongly suggest that, at least in the source, vibrationally excited molecular hydrogen, the precursor to atomic negative ion production, is produced via a surface mechanism suggested by Hall et al. rather than via a gas phase reaction as is generally believed to be the case in most ion sources